


every saint has a past (every sinner has a future)

by fabulous_but_evil



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: (Former) Priests Ironically Calling Each Other Daddy Bc They're In Denial About Their Religion Kink, After 3 months on the road even the preppiest altar boys become a little... rough at the edges?, Alcohol, Americana, Anger, Angst, Are Those Symptoms Of Depression Or Demonic Posession Please Send Help, At least I tried ok?, Awkward Romance, Beer, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Tomas Ortega, Bisexuality, Blasphemy, Canon Gay Character, Canon Het Relationship, Communication Between The Lines, Cultural References, Denial of Feelings, Developing Relationship, Diners, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Emotionally Repressed, Español | Spanish, Eventual Romance, Except they kinda wanna bone, Falling In Love, Fast Food, Fights, Fist Fights, Food, Food Issues, Food Porn, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Friends to Lovers, Getting to Know Each Other, Implied Sexual Content, Just bros being bros, Kinda, Kissing, Latino Character, Let's Talk About Sex Baby To Avoid Talking About Our Feelings, Low-key ooc language maybe?, M/M, Made For Each Other, Marcus Keane's and Tomas Ortega's Six-Months Road Trip, Maybe just maybe this is Marcus' excuse to relive the teenage rebellion he probably never had, Mental Health Issues, Mentor/Protégé, Mexican Character, Mild Language, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Most of this is only touched on very briefly tbh, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, POV Second Person, POV Third Person Limited, Past Relationship(s), Past Tomas Ortega/Jessica Ridmark (mentioned), Pining, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Relationship, References to Canon, References to Depression, Religion, Religious Conflict, Religious Content, Religious Discussion, Religious Guilt, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Road Trips, Self-Denial, Slow Romance, Smoking, So Wrong It's Right, Soft Drinks, Strangers to Lovers, Stress Relief, Technically but not really, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vomiting, Wanting To Have Sex And Pretending It's Not Because They're In Love, Worry, i guess, maybe a little bit?, maybe emotionally repressed sex will help?, maybe? - Freeform, ok maybe tomas is spiralling a bit rn, unhealthy eating habits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabulous_but_evil/pseuds/fabulous_but_evil
Summary: You drift in and out of sleep over and over again while you're sitting in the passenger's seat next to him.In your waking moments, you blink at him. The sun catches in Marcus' hair and reflects in his eyes - still so surprisinsgly fucking bright despite everything he's seen and been through - and makes him look quite angelic.You know your being blasphemous there, but then again, you make your living by exorcising demons, so maybe you and Him are even now.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tomas has a hard time adjusting to his new life on the road... and his new and confusing feelings for Marcus.(Spoiler: They do not deal with it like adults, they only ever pretend to do so.)
Relationships: Marcus Keane/Tomas Ortega
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	every saint has a past (every sinner has a future)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dorinda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorinda/gifts).



> Dear Dorinda!
> 
> I tried my best to fulfill your request.
> 
> I tried to focus on the road trip/"troubled characters eating in roadside diners and sleeping in shabby motels and seeking an ineffable something that they end up finding in each other" aesthetic you asked for, but I feel like Tomas being confused about his feelings kind of lead to me being confused, too, and this turning out a bit messy.  
> Anyway, I had a great time writing it and hope you'll find it just as enjoyable!
> 
> (I highly recommend listening to Halsey, especially her album Badlands, especially the song Drive while reading because that's what I did while writing and I feel like that really sets the mood/tone of what I intended it to be for this story.  
> The title is from a quote by Oscar Wilde. The quote at the beginning is from one of my all time favourite teenage dirtbag roadtrip songs.)

> _Six pacs and bigmacs_  
>  _Keep us rollin' down the road_  
>  _Cigarettes and coffee_  
>  _Whereever we go_
> 
> Six Pacs - The Getaway People

Tomas carries a plastic bag full of empty coke, beer and energy drink cans to the next trash bin.  
When he returns to the car, Marcus has already come back from the gas station shop with a new six pac of liquid poison.  
"There's a diner over there. How about lunch?"  
He smiles at him, and Tomas can't help but smile back. There's nothing between heaven and hell that could make him resist his dimples and sparkling eyes, no matter how dark the circles under Marcus' eyes are and how deep the pain goes underneath.  
"Sure, I'm starving."  
He doesn't remember when was the last time they had a proper meal. It doesn't matter really, as long as they're on the road and survive.  
As they make their way to the restaurant, they fall in step with each other.

+

Tomas watches Marcus eat a bigmac or whatever the off-brand equivalent is called nowadays.  
They joke and laugh as the latter devours his meal and licks the BBQ sauce of his calloused fingers.  
Tomas can't keep the hairs at the back of his neck from muscle-remembering all the times these fingers have touched him, held him close.  
Remembers staring into Marcus' ocean-deep blue eyes during prayer and/or while fighting - either each other or another demon.  
He lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding and when he breathes in again, he imagines he can practically /smell/ the warmth of Marcus' hug.  
Those are the innocent thoughts, but he knows himself. As soon as he allows himself the harmless ones, the dirty ones are soon to come. As soon as he finds himself imagining himself as the one to lick the sauce off of Marcus' fingers, he lowers his gaze and stares at his fries.  
"Are you done with that?"  
"Huh?"  
Tomas' head snaps up again, only for him to find Marcus grinning at you with twinkling eyes. How on earth is he supposed to withstand the urge to kiss this beautifully adorable man any longer?  
"Are you gonna... finish that?"  
Tomas's back to staring at his fries again. If he's only trying to be a little bit honest with himself, he is indeed done. He wasn't even hungry in the first place to begin with when Marcus pulled up to this stop.  
But he knows he has to eat. Simply to avoid Marcus' piercing, worried gaze, and because one doesn't fight demons easily with an empty stomach. So he decides he's going to force the fries down.  
"You can have my salad."  
He forces himself to smile, but when Marcus smiles back, the crinkles around his eyes aren't laughter lines, they're from worry.

*

You drift in and out of sleep over and over again while you're sitting in the passenger's seat next to him.  
In your waking moments, you blink at him. The sun catches in Marcus' hair and reflects in his eyes - still so surprisinsgly fucking bright despite everything he's seen and been through - and makes him look quite angelic.  
You know your being blasphemous there, but then again, you make your living by exorcising demons, so maybe you and Him are even now.  
Thinking of God is like walking on tightrope these days. Outside of the chaos of an exorcism you rarely even pray anymore, and when you do, it's to ask if this is really the path He wants for you - and to ask for forgiveness, although you aren't even always sure anymore what even for. Thinking of God makes you want to throw up nowadays - or maybe it's the cheap diner food and always-on-the-road-kinda-feeling fucking with your stomach. But you can't tell Marcus about this. You're not exactly... friends, far from friends who talk to each other about their feelings. It's bad enough as it is that you still mess up from time to time and make things worse for everyone involved. Sometimes, you are sure Marcus doubts your aptitude as an exorcist even more than you do yourself. You can't tell Marcus about this, but you desperately need him to stop the car, get out and be alone for a minute or two. So you say the first thing that comes to your still half-asleep mind, unfiltered and unpolished, "I really need to take a piss," you murmur, still half-asleep.  
Your voice is scratchy from the hours on the road, and you haven't had a drink in all this time, Marcus wouldn't have to look at you twice to find out you're lying.  
But maybe, when he hears you speak dreamy untruths like when you told him in a greasy bar that your abuelita wanted you to become el primer papa mexicano and that to you God sounded like a mariachi band, all he hears is that you're asking for a favour.  
This time, you're asking for a stop prior to your destination, and preferably one with a restroom.

+

Marcus pulls up to the next gas station, watches you get out of the car and disappear into the men's room.  
You lock yourself in the next best stall and fall to your knees as if to pray.  
Instead, you throw up nearly right on the spot.  
Afterwards, you wash your mouth with metallic-tasting tab water, but the stale taste still lingers.  
So you buy a pack of cigarettes, light one and take a deep breath before you throw the pack at Marcus.  
He raises an eyebrow at you. "Since when..."  
"Since today."  
The two of you do not talk for the rest of the five hour drive. The both of you blow their cigarette smoke out of your seperate windows all the while you pretend not to see the worried side glances he spares you and he pretends not to realize that you're ignoring him.  
It's only much later that you realize just how all of that must've looked like to him.

+

The two of you are fighting, and you can see it in his eyes that neither of you remember why you even started in the first place - there's nothing else left in the air between you than anger.  
One thing leads to the other but time stands still as soon as Marcus' fist painfully connects with your jaw.  
It hits you so unexpected that you fall to your knees right then and there.  
When you're looking up at him, he looks even more divine than when the both of you are on eye level.  
He looks down on you and seems to see something else in you as well, for he stops dead in his tracks, takes a step back, exhales heavily as if only now and suddenly coming back to himself, extending his other hand to help him up.  
It's only now that you realize he must've noticed you acting strangely the past few weeks. Changed eating habits, chaotic-to-non-existent sleeping patterns, distancing yourself and shutting yourself off. All these are signs that could be not only a testament to your messed-up mental health, but also to... demonic posession. He probably only started this fight as a sort of a test. You assume you passed it.  
"I'm sorry, Tomas," he says, sounding sincere and a little shocked and surprised that he actually snapped, but soon back to grinning and laughing it off by joking, "A man like you should only be in this position for confession or copulation and one of these things is forbidden for me and the other is forbidden for you."  
You have a million questions, starting with _What do you mean, a man like me?_ and ending at _Would it really kill you if he kissed?_ , but you also have a bruise forming at your aching jaw now, so you accept his hand and the beer he offers you next.

+

"Were you serious?," you ask him over the sound of the static crackling of the television.  
"Serious about what?"  
You're not quite sure you want to answer that question, so you choose to rephrase.  
"What if I weren't looking for absolution. What if I only wanted to talk about it. Would you listen to my confession?"  
He looks at you and then back at the screen, politely refraining from pointing out it wouldn't be a confession then. "What do you have to confess?"  
"I could confess that the way you sprawl out on this filthy motel couch like it's the throne of your kingdom makes me go weak in the knees."  
Marcus actually has the fucking audicity to raise a sceptical eyebrow at him.  
So instead of keeping to try to express your feelings through words, you simply fall to your knees in front of him. You carefully place your hand on his thigh.  
"Do you think pre-martial sex is sin?"  
"No."  
It's one simple, short word, but it holds so much weigth, so much meaning. His voice is heavy and dry as he speaks.  
"Do you think gay sex is?"  
Marcus huffs out a laugh, only ever so barely adjusts his position. "Hell, no."  
You look up at him under heavy eyelashes. You're shaking and you feel like you're close to crying.  
"I wanted to ask you this for so long, I've been thinking about this for so long, I just..."  
Suddely, almost painfully, Marcus grabs your arm and pulls you to your feet, but because he's awkwardly lounging on a dirty motel sofa he isn't really in the position to make sure you keep your balance, you end up falling face-first against his chest.  
When that very same hand releases the almost bruising grip on your arm, his fingers find your chin and lift it up.  
You don't remember when was the last time you were so close to him. As soon as you realized your interest in him had ceased to be purely professional, you had resorted to keeping your distance in advance. To don't even give you the change to do -  
You stop worrying and thinking alltogether as soon as Marcus' lips touch yours. The kiss is chaste and dry and short-lived, but it makes you feel as alive as you haven't felt in quite a long time.  
You pull back carefully before you can give into temptation of deepening the kiss. You blink at him in disbelief. He smiles back.  
"I wanted to to this ever since I first met you. Although back in the day, my main motivation was to shut you up and forget about my current situtation. Now I wanna do it because I happen to like you."  
And that's what makes you smile again, honestly for a change. The fact that he doesn't say _I like you_ or even _I'm in love_ with you or the ever so blunt _I wanna sleep with you_ , but simply opts for _I happen to like you._  
Which only means that you ended up having to ask for what you want yet again.  
"Can I blow you?", you ask, awkwardly and entirely ruining the a-hint-of-romance-kinda-mood, because you never even were quite sure how much of wanting Marcus actually was only sexually.  
The only person you ever loved - before and/or besides Marcus? - was Jessica, and what you feel for Marcus feels... different.  
Maybe, you think to yourself, that is because Jessica and Marcus are so different.  
Jessica is the picture perfect looking glass reflection image of yourself; soft and settled all the while desperately full of love.  
She loved you so much and you loved her just as much that you both felt safe and proud to call each other the love of your life, but after you chose God and celibacy over her and found it quite self-fulfilling, she also had little to no difficulty to find someone else she loved enough to get married to - but at the end of the day, the two of you were nothing but magnets, two planets caught in each other's orbits bound to crash and bring destruction to your moons.  
But Marcus - Marcus is everything you could've been and should've been, but also the negative of it all at once.  
He's been a priest for so long, he could be bishop, maybe even archbiship by bow if it weren't for his blatant disregard for rules, hierarchal structures and authority figures and his raw belief in God..  
He's an exorcist and excommunicated. He's dirty and scrawny and so fucking lonely.  
But not alone. Not anymore.  
And that's the difference, you guess.  
Loving Jessica meant seeking out and enjoying her company because they were the same.  
Loving? Marcus meant seeking out and enjoying his company because the both of you are uniquely different, united only by the universally aknowledged truth that without the other, you'd be lost and all alone.  
Marcus chuckles darkly, eyes suddenly clouded by an entirely different hunger. "I don't know if you can, but you definitely may."  
You reflexively growl at him, for you've never liked to have his grammar corrected - to many bad memories involving racist teachers - and moves in for another kiss.  
"Is that a challenge, daddy?"


End file.
